getting rid of white spot

[W Churchill]

I set up my second tank some months ago after having a fair amount of success with my first. My first had no sterilisation and I'd never had a problem with white spot.

My first fish in my second tank was a coral beauty, it died within 5 days. Actually it went missing for no more than 24 hours and when I looked it was so badly decomposed that I really couldn't tell what the problem had been but prepared for white spot by getting a 25W steriliser and a 1250 ltr/hr (275 g/h) power filter but I also introduced a chillier which I know can reduce flow. The UV was supposed to be good for a 600 ltr tank, mine is 170 ltrs.

I introduced a copperband after a few weeks more which also got white spot, I treated it by removing it from the tank into a bucket with water removed from the tank and adding 5 x the recommended dose of protozol for a couple of hours.

This treatment kept the white spot at bay, but I could only sustain this by treating in the same way every few days. i went on holiday for 2 weeks and couldn't treat, when I came back the white spot was too far advanced and I lost this fish also.

After a few more weeks I got a yellow cowfish which also got white spot, again I treated out of the tank with protozol, the white spot cleared up and I stopped the treatment but the cowfish eventually died through secondary infection although the white spot never returned.

After a few more weeks I got a yellow long nosed butterfly and within 5 days had white spot again. at first it was only visible on the fins but later on its body, later still infection on its body disappeared and I assumed the marks on its fins that remained were scar tissue and white spot had been beaten.

To strengthen my position I bought a second 25W/600 ltr steriliser and connected it to a powerhead that delivered 1000 ltr/h (220 g/h) and positioned its intake at the other end of the tank from the intake for the first UV, again I didn't expect the full flow via the powerhead given the route the water had to take.

I felt that if anything my UV set up was significantly OTT, but anything that got rid of the white spot would be worth it in the end. I now had 50W of UV that should be adequate for 1200 ltrs of water (I now had about 200 ltrs allowing for water in my accessories) and a considerable sum of money invested in this equipment

However from this point on my longnose has once again contracted white spot, I haven't treated him this time, perhaps I should have, but I figured the UV's would eventually do their job, they haven't so far and my longnose is now so heavily infected that he realistically has no chance, although he continues to eat well.

I don't know what more I can do, I've considered running my UV's in series, ie one after the other in the same flow, but it seems my set up should be more than adequate as it is.

I really hate seeing fish die this way, and whilst my set up is aimed at corals I would like a healthy fish population to co-exist with them, i don't want to keep using fish as experiments, it hurts me.

I don't know what to do next, I am a noobie and wonder if there could be some sort of nest for white spot that I need to get rid of, I believe I understand the white spot cycle and such ideas are just panic, but I'm now at a loss about all this.

Perhaps I shouldn't expect any solutions from you guys in the short term, but I'd be more than happy to receive any comments you have, I can't keep killing fish in this way, it isn't me.

By the way Ph is normal, NO2 is 0, NO3 is negligible, PO4 is 0, Ca and Mg are normal. my coral, invert and anemones are doing just fine, I keep salinity at 1.024 to encourage growth, but I might reduce it gradually to discourage pests, but surely the equipment I have should do that anyway.

Please post your comments, i need to sort this out.

[brandon]

Sounds like you have ick. Do not buy any more fish for a t least a month. To kill the ick faster higher your temp to 82 and lower your salinity. Make sure the white dots are ick. Do you have pics of your fish with the white dots on it?

[Woodstock]

(Moved to Fish Diseases & Treatments)

A couple of facts:
A tank must remain 'fallow' (fish free) for at least 6 weeks (8 is better) to starve out ICH.
A UV sterilizer ONLY kills what flows through it and then only IF the flow is slow enough, IF the water clear enough and IF quartz sleeve is clean. It can no kill all the parasites in a tank.

I recommend removing all fish and treating them appropriately in a separate hospital tank meanwhile leaving the main display fallow for eight weeks.

ALWAYS, always quarantine fish, snails, corals, or anything wet prior to adding it to your display. Anything 'wet' has the possibility of transporting parasites.

Also, can you post photos of your sick fish so we can determine the disease?

[lcstorc]

Assuming it is ich there are only two ways to get rid of it and they both involve removing all fish from the display into a hospital tank to be treated with either hyposalinity or copper. The display mush be fishless for 6-8 weeks for the parasite to go through it's life cycle without a host and die. UV can assist but it is not a fix. It only removes the free swimming parasites that go through the uv.
Once you go through this process and eliminate the ich from the fish and the tank all rew additions will need to go through a qt/treatment process.
Here is a link that gives step by step instructions and details.
This is all assuming that ich is the problem. You want to get a real id of the disease before treating.
Marine Ich - Myths and Facts
Copper - Treatment, Use, Problems
A Hyposalinity Treatment Process